I wouldn't even touch a 290X until the board partners release their custom cooled versions. As far as the benefit goes, I would not expect to see an additional $580 worth of improvement, not unless you are using three 2560x1600 displays.

AMD's reference cooler is inadequate and if you turn the fan speeds up to 65% then you better have some good speakers rated for at least 100w RMS if you want to hear them over the wail. Wait for custom cooled cards.

Hi, I tried with a 3-way R9 290X but I have only problems. If you want to run that without liquid cooling, you will be better with only 2-way. I tried all possible configurations and if you see my other post, you will see that you will have issues with only air cooling. I will try with liquid cooling and see the difference, I hope that will work.